Kemmelberg

The Gas attacks at Wulverghem (30 April and 17 June 1916) were German cloud gas releases during the First World War on British troops at Wulverghem in the municipality of Heuvelland, near Ypres in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The gas attacks were part of the sporadic fighting between battles in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. The British Second Army held the ground from Messines Ridge northwards to Steenstraat and the divisions opposite the German XXIII Reserve Corps had received warnings of a gas attack. From 21 to 23 April, British artillery-fire exploded several gas cylinders in the German lines around Spanbroekmolen, which released greenish-yellow clouds. A gas alert was given on 25 April when the wind began to blow from the north-east and routine work was suspended; on 29 April, two German soldiers deserted and warned that an attack was imminent. Just after midnight on 30 April, the German attack began and over no man's land, a gas cloud drifted on the wind into the British defences, then south-west towards Bailleul. The gas used at Wulverghem was a mixture of chlorine and phosgene, which had been used against British troops on 19 December 1915 in the phosgene attack at Wieltje, north-east of Ypres. This and earlier gas attacks, beginning at the Second Battle of Ypres (21 April – 25 May 1915) had given the British time to replace improvised gas masks with effective mass-produced versions, obtain other anti-gas equipment and to establish anti-gas procedures. Helmets impregnated with chemicals to neutralise chlorine had been issued in several variants, each more effective than the last. By April 1916, British troops had PH helmets and some specialist troops like machine-gunners, were equipped with box respirators. The German gas attack at Wulverghem on 30 April, caused the defenders 562 gas casualties and 89 gas fatalities but German raiding parties, looking for mine entrances to destroy, were repulsed with small-arms and artillery fire. A second attempt by the Germans on 17 June caused about the same number of gas casualties but the British again easily repulsed German patrols.

Heuvelland (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦøːvəlɑnt] ) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the villages of Dranouter, Kemmel, De Klijte, Loker, Nieuwkerke, Westouter, Wijtschate and Wulvergem. Heuvelland is a thinly populated rural municipality, located between the small urban centres of Ypres and Poperinge and the metropolitan area of Kortrijk-Lille along the E17. On 1 January 2006 Heuvelland had a total population of 8,217. The total area is 94.24 km2 which gives a population density of 87 inhabitants per km2. The name heuvelland is Dutch meaning "hill country", as the municipality is characterized by the different hills on its territory.

De Klijte (French, La Clytte, West Flemish: De Klyte, locally known as De Kliete) is a village in the municipality of Heuvelland in West Flanders, Belgium. Before the 1977 Belgian municipal reforms, De Klijte was part of the municipality Reningelst. Reningelst proper joined Poperinge, but De Klijte joined the new municipality Heuvelland. The village is located near the hill Scherpenberg.

Dranouter (Dutch, locally known as Nouter) is a village and a deelgemeente in the municipality of Heuvelland in West Flanders, Belgium. Dranouter was an independent municipality before the 1977 local government reforms. Since then, it has been part of the municipality of Heuvelland. The area of the deelgemeente Dranouter is 10.73 km2. The Dranouter Folk Festival is organised in the village every year. The postal code is 8951.

Wulverghem (also known as Wulvergem) is a Belgian village. It is the smallest village in the Heuvelland Municipality, with 260 people, and a total area of 350 hectares.

Loker (also spelt Locre ) is a small village in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a part ("deelgemeente") of the municipality of Heuvelland. For the major part of World War I, the city was controlled by the Allied Powers. A field hospital was located there and multiple war graves can also be found.

Spanbroekmolen is a small group of farms in Heuvelland, a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The hamlet is sited on one of the highest points of the Messines Ridge, in between the villages of Kemmel, Wijtschate and Wulvergem.

The Mines in the Battle of Messines comprised a series of underground explosive charges which were fired during the First World War at the start of the Battle of Messines (7–14 June 1917) by the British Second Army (General Sir Herbert Plumer) near the village of Mesen (Messines in French, historically also used in English and German) in Belgian West Flanders. The mines, secretly planted and maintained by British tunnelling units beneath the forward position of the German 4th Army (General Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Armin), killed approximately 10,000 German soldiers and created 19 large craters. Their joint explosion ranks among the largest non-nuclear explosions of all time. The evening before the attack, General Sir Charles Harington, Chief of Staff of the Second Army, remarked to the press, "Gentlemen, I don’t know whether we are going to make history tomorrow, but at any rate we shall change geography". The Battle of Messines marked the zenith of mine warfare. Just over two months later, on 10 August 1917, the Royal Engineers fired the last British deep mine of the war, at Givenchy-en-Gohelle near Arras.

Fliegerhorst Vlamertinge is a former military air base, located 8.4 km east-southeast of Poperinge in West Flanders, Belgium. It was closed in 1945 and is now in agricultural use.

Grootebeek British Cemetery is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) burial ground for the dead of the Western Front of the First and Second World War. It is located near Reningelst in the municipality of Poperinge in western Belgium. The cemetery is surrounded by farmland and can only be reached via a 100-metre grassed path which is not suitable for vehicles.